KOTOR: Where do We Begin?
by Tahkaullus01
Summary: A prologue for a possible KOTOR novelisation that I may or may not do depending on the audience's response as well as whether or not I'll have the time to write it up. Therefore marking it as complete. Male Revan, Grey Side of the Force.


As the summary says, this is a prologue for a KOTOR novelisation I may or may not do. I wanted to get some reactions to you the audience to decide whether or not to go ahead with it. The story gets a bit controversial in terms of light and dark side, the overall theme eventually coming down to balance and how we go about finding that balance. Is it even possible? As you'll gather from the first part of the prologue, this novelisation will also incorporate other Star Wars lore. I do this because when I think of Revan, at least in his youth, I visualise a man who is always looking for more, broadening his horizons, as such it would only be natural that he knew about certain things about the history of the Jedi and Sith, even the Force Wars. Maybe that's what drew him to gaining a different view of the Force.

One final note, this is an incredibly rough draft. As such there are a lot of things I want to refine about it. Please help me out by giving me constructive criticism.

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**Prologue: Where do We Begin?**

_It is probably wise to begin at the beginning. But where is the beginning?_

_Does it start in the confines of an uncomfortable bunk, wiping sweat from your brow, as the crippled ship you're on begins its death throes?_

_Maybe it begins on the bridge of your flagship, watching as you spring the trap that your enemy thought was their trap but was really your trap all along by allowing them to believe it was their trap._

_Or perhaps something less confusing, maybe it really begins on Dromund Caas, coming face to face with the very epitome of evil, and yet still feeling sympathy for his subjects, so much so that his voice manages to sway you to fight for him._

_Then again it could have begun at Malachor V, feeling all those deaths at once – Jedi and Mandalorian, soldier and slave, friend and foe – seeing the gut wrenching pain it is putting one of your dearest friends through...and yet all you feel is accomplishment and not a little bit of satisfaction, not just because it means the war's over but because now you know those left will always have your back._

_Still, the beginning could have absolutely nothing to do with war. It could have started on Dantooine when you were just a child, meeting that bullheaded yet friendly giant baldy and the sweet yet shy bookworm who latched on to you and never quite let go. The new kid who was older than was usually allowed, but considering your 'special case' the vaunted Jedi Council decided to make an exception...pompous hypocritical asses._

_But why does the beginning have to have anything to do with you at all? For all you know this could all have began at Korriban, hundreds of years before you were born, when the Republic decided to bomb the inhabitants to kingdom come. This one action would stem the course of the future for countless generations, maybe even outliving you, never to be halted until the Chosen One finally appears and restores balance to the Force. Then again, legends are just stories...and stories can fudge facts sometimes to cover up certain...undesirable truths._

_Of course, personal issues may have nothing to do with it. Maybe the beginning lies in the first Great Schism, the supposed origin of the Dark Jedi. Such a simple word, 'dark', and yet being labelled as such would earn you the ire of people you had once called friends. A loss on such a scale might have led to anger at the masters for being stigmatised, which may then have turned to hate...and so in the end, is the Force split because of the Jedi and their unwillingness to change?_

_But then, that's not really first time it happened is it? The beginning could have begun on the home-world of the Jedi Order: Typhon. When the Force Wars raged and the world itself took part in the conflict. Maybe that's where all this really began, right at the very beginning of it all..._

_And everything that became of you is a result of two sides who simply cannot agree with each other. Light and Dark, Good and Evil, Jedi and Sith...words used to simplify the incomprehensible thing known as the Force..._

_But then, _Revan thought to himself for the thousandth time as he stared out at the vast emptiness of space, _what does the Force care what it is called? In the end both the Jedi and the Sith are too narrow minded to see the truth...we are the ones who take sides. The Force doesn't give a frack._

It was a distinction he'd made early on in his studies as an apprentice on Dantooine, and then later voiced to others. Most of the time he received the same line from his peers, so often that he started to suspect Alek was behind it. 'The Force guides us, it shows us the way and we follow. To deviate from that path is the taint of the Dark Side.' If they even listened to themselves they'd realise just how much sense that line didn't make. Even the Jedi Masters quoted it, as if it was burned into their brains or something; Vrook, the frowning bald old fart, particularly liked using that line any time Revan had felt particularly satisfied with anything. Clearly the old man thought he knew better than all other Jedi and believed his words held the most weight, so it had to piss him off that a short stumpy croaky troll of a Jedi like Master Vandar was considered the wisest of the bunch.

For all their words, they knew nothing of the Force. Not like him. Revan had gone further into discovering the truth about the great mystery than any other before him, first through his first master, Kreia – whom he believed to be the only Jedi master to still have a lick of sense – and then from holocrons collected from various worlds: Dantooine, Coruscant, Ossus, Corellia, his home-world Deralia, and even the Sith Tombs of Yavin and Korriban. Knowledge was the ultimate form of power, and Revan considered himself very knowledgeable.

And yet even he hadn't been ready for the trials life would throw at him. The Mandalorian wars had just been the start. Thinking about that time, Revan realised how naïve he had been even then, to even entertain the idea of having learned everything there was to know. To start thinking like that was to walk the path of the Jedi or the Sith, one path he rejected out of disillusionment, the other out of just how self destructive it was – his experiences on Dromund Caas had proven that. The fear of the citizens, the anger of the soldiers, the hatred of the Emperor, all of it had nearly deafened him to the Force. Had it not been for the Sith Academy he and Alek discovered on Malachor V before the final battle, he may very well have fallen then and there. But once again he proved his Jedi Masters wrong, as the so-called Dark Side of the Force rushed to his defence, drawing on his own emotions. That, and that alone, had helped him break free of the Emperor at last, along with Alek.

In that instance, Revan had learned the ultimate truth about the Force, something that had always eluded him had finally been made clear. And armed with that knowledge, as well as his free will, Revan returned home with his followers, ready to do something that, if he failed, would imprint him as one of the greatest traitors in the history of the Republic. However if he succeeded, there wouldn't be a Republic anymore...and with any luck, there wouldn't be any Sith Empire once he was finished.

Four years on, that plan seemed to finally be coming together, though it had cost him much. In all this time, he had been unable to find Meetra. Revan knew all about her trial and what had been done to her, how she could no longer feel the Force and for that he held himself fully responsible. Nevertheless that did not excuse the Council, especially Atris and that whiny bitch Vrook, of their actions. Exile was possibly the worst thing they could have done to her. She needed help and they tossed her away! For that alone Revan was ready to tear into their Jedi ranks, bring more young minds into the fold, to teach them the truth about the Force through force, pun not intended. Sadly though, no matter how many scouts he'd sent out searching for her across the Outer Rim, many who would know her by sight having served alongside her during the Wars, they never found a thing. This had lead Revan to two conclusions. Either she was dead or, and this was sadly the more likely possibility, she just didn't want to see him.

Another blow was the change in Alek. Ever since Malachor V, he hadn't been the same, more prone to anger, faster to draw his lightsaber. The man had always had a bit of a short fuse but now he was like a thermal detonator set to instant-action. He only got worse after their encounter with the Emperor, now any time a person questioned his word they usually found themselves without a head. The Star Forge's influence was what probably finally drove him over the proverbial edge. It didn't help that HK-47 had taken to calling him a 'meatbag,' something that, on reflection, Revan shouldn't have encouraged even if it had seemed rather amusing. The temper flares of his friend-turned-apprentice had caused strains on their friendship before throughout the Wars, but now they were near hostile barbs thrown at him. More than once Revan had been thankful of the Mandalorian Mask he wore pretty much all the time now – it hid his anger, as well as his shame, to see Alek acting so un-Alek-like. He'd even abandoned his own name, traded it in for 'Malak' because it sounded more powerful, and equal for Revan...but all that did was make him angrier.

At last things came to a head when they set their sights on Telos IV. The plan had been to capture the world and take all the 'failed' Jedi apprentices under their wing. With so many Force-sensitives in one place, they were looking at a goldmine in recruits. Malak however had other ideas, and ordered Admiral Saul Karath to bombard the planet's surface. Fury was beyond the pale of what had surged through Revan's veins when he stormed off of his shuttle seconds after it landed in the _Leviathan's _hangar, barking audibly and mentally for Malak to get his pale, bald, brainless ass in front of him. When he'd demanded an explanation, a deep-seated fear that he had never voiced was realised as Malak explained his reasoning.

"_It is not the way of the Sith to let the weak survive, Master...the strong must always rule, that is the way of the Sith...the Sith conquer all in their path..."_

'The way of the Sith.' That was the only thing he'd heard. Malak may as well have been mute for the rest of his explanation. The words made no sense to Revan, he'd told Malak that they were creating something, not light or dark, but new. The way of the Sith was foolhardy, and yet here stood his oldest friend defending...no, _supporting_ a failed order even after everything the Emperor had done to them. Everything Malak said flew in the face of everything they were trying to create...and then Revan did something that, in his heart of hearts, he knew severed whatever tangible threads of friendship left between them. In one fluid motion, he summoned his lightsaber from his hand, and swung forward, activating it mid-swipe, searing off the bottom half of Malak's jaw. He still remembered the writhing mass of the tall man who had once been his friend screaming in undiluted agony and fury. But he had been bitter and, had his mask not been in the way, he would have spat on Malak. Instead he chose to use words.

"_The way of the Sith dictates that the strong rule over the weak, _Apprentice. _I suppose we know where you stand then, don't we?"_

Nothing had been the same since he calmly walked away from his apprentice and stalked up the bridge, relieving Karath of his position as Admiral and throwing him in the brig to await his punishment later. That action sent the Republic into uproar, demanding the head of their once saviour where before they had been pleading him to just stop his attacks. Even the Jedi were getting involved, and that really irked Revan something rotten; millions dead at the hands of Mandalorians, not their concern. One Jedi leaves and learns a new way of looking at things, suddenly he's the ultimate evil. Hypocritical bastards.

If that wasn't enough, there was a new tension in his own ranks. Now it felt like he had to watch over his shoulder for any sign of treachery. His dealing with Malak had definitely caused a tremor in the upper echelon, which worked its way down to the lower ranks, whispers of 'Sith' and 'Dark Jedi' started becoming common place. Before he knew it, his own people had taken to calling him Darth, a Sith moniker.

Sighing again, Revan stepped away from the huge glass window that made up a wall of his quarters' observation lounge and entered his chambers where his luxurious sleeping accommodations awaited him. Sighing, he dropped down on the bed, his masked face finding a place in his open palms. Where had it all gone wrong? One friend missing, another hating his guts and likely planning a betrayal, and now his soldiers and citizens were losing sight of what he was trying to create, the Jedi called him Sith, and the Republic were calling this conflict the Jedi Civil War. He wasn't even a fracking Jedi anymore!

_Is everyone blind? _He wondered to himself, reaching back and unfastening the clasps on the back of his mask that held it to his face. _Am I the only one who sees what must be done in order to survive what is to come? _The mask came off slowly and painfully, long hours of being fastened on having created deep grooves in his skin that the interior had sunk into and become lodged there.

He thought of the Jedi. _Why can't they see?_

He thought of his people. _Why can't they remember?_

He thought of the Sith Empire, waiting for them beyond the veil. _Did the Emperor know this would happen? Is that why he hasn't sent his assassins for me?_

If that were true then it put everything in a new perspective, one that he didn't want to ever consider. It meant he was doomed to fail before he even started. No one would listen, and those who did eventually forgot. It just wasn't possible to reconcile the light with the dark.

Not bothering to take off his armour, Revan lay back on the bed, and even though he tried to sleep his fears kept him awake. Meetra's desertion, Malak's impending betrayal, the Jedi's foolishness, his own people's forgetfulness. It all pointed to one thing alone, his battle-hardened mind told him. Regardless of how many worlds they'd taken, or of how much stronger his fleets and armies were thanks to the Star Forge, or that he was able to inspire the loyalty of so many people. The fact remained, mocking Revan as he fell into a fitful slumber, whispering the truth he'd realised.

The truth that, even if he defeated the Republic and the Jedi, setting up a new regime and a new system, it would only set up a new version of light versus dark.

Even if he won, Revan was going to lose...

_And from this realisation, we may now proceed with the beginning..._

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic

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Ugh, I feel sick just from reading this. Definitely not my best work. Please criticise the hell out of this because I'm definitely not doing enough of it myself.  
What this was supposed to do was characterise Revan's personality during what had to be an emotionally draining time for him. Maybe not everything said here is true, but right now, in his state of mind, that's the truth.  
If you want me to go ahead and make a full story of it, drop me a line. I'll set up a poll and you can vote on it.  
Voting closes when one of three things happens: 1. Enough comments tell me that I shouldn't do it. 2. Enough comments tell me that I should do it. 3. 'Do it/Don't do it' on the polls reaches fifty votes.  
P.S. 'Enough comments' means more than three pages worth.


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